Oct 30, 2013 04:05 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

It wasn't easy being one of the largest dinosaurs on the planet, aside from the fact of their eventual extinction. Scientists in England and Argentina who used laser scanning and computer models to study the likely movement patterns of the 100-foot long Argentinosaurus discovered the enormous reptile was incredibly slow, The Washington Post reported.

Bill Sellers, a University of Manchester professor and lead researcher of the study, imagined the difficulties the creature must have faced with a top speed of no more than five mph.

"It was a relatively slow beast," Sellers said. "As you get bigger, you start running out of the force you need to move. This animal would find things like getting up off the ground very difficult. I hate to think how it would do things like mate. That would be a very delicate operation for it, because it was so large."

The 80-ton beast belonged to the sauropod family, known for their thick legs, long necks and tails, and relatively tiny heads, according to The Washinton Post. For such a large being, evidence of the Argentinosaurus existence has been scant. Scientists projected their size based on a small sample of vertebrae, ribs, and leg fossils. Until now, experts wondered if the dinosaur was really as big as originally predicted because they couldn't fathom how the enormous creature could move.

"It is frustrating there was so little of the original dinosaur fossilized, making any reconstruction difficult," said Phil Manning, who helped with the study and heads Manchester's paleontology research group.

To create the simulation below, Sellers, Manning, and colleagues used laser technology to create a 3-D rendering of the Argentinosaurus, which they inserted into computer modeling software designed by Sellers, The Washington Post reported.

Sellers noted that his team was careful to "rely strictly on the data" and conduct their study without any preconceived notions of movement and movement in dinosaurs.

"The difference between what we're doing and some other people are doing is that we don't use as a starting point an assumed way that this animal would have moved," he said. "We can't be 100 percent certain that we found the best answer. . . . But we're getting close."

The model depicted a "perfectly competent dinosaur," according to Sellers. "There's nothing mechanically that would stop you having an 80-ton dinosaur built like this."

Next, the group will attempt the unorthodox movements of the triceratops, according to The Washington Post.

"Our next target is probably a triceratops," Sellers said. "It has short front legs and long back legs. It's going to have a really peculiar way of walking."

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